ENGLISH
464		 ADVANCED POETRY WORKSHOP
Section 001 / Spring 2007 / Susan Tichy


464
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Schedule
 
 
 

Updates! Updates! Updates! Updates! Updates! Updates! Updates! Updates! 

On this page I will post all notices of new assignments, changes to the schedule, etc. You should check this page at least once a week. You are responsible for knowing  what is posted here. Pay particular attention to this page whenever the gmu e-mail system is acting up.

April 17: I have revised the guidelines for the final portfolio, correcting one mistake and making the instructions clearer. You will find them on the Main Page.
March 17: I have posted the schedule for the rest of the semester. Use the link at left.

I have also changed a few details in the description of what is required in your final portfolio. You will find that on the Main Page.

Feb 25: Clarification: The schedule asks you to write a rhymed poem, stanzaic or otherwise, for our next workshop sessions (March 6 & 8) and calls for an open workshop (poem of your choice) for the first week after Spring Break.

In class last Thursday I modified this, to say: you may consider the next round of workshop (March 6 & 8) an open workshop, to which you may bring any sort of poem you are working on. You may still wish to bring a rhymed poem, particularly since your first portfolio is due immediately after Spring Break; but the choice is yours.

In addition, I told you last Thursday that your rhymed poem may NOT use full rhyme as end rhyme. Please use the slant-rhyme exercises, the rhyme tables, and your texts to study the alternatives. Reading a lot of 20th c. poems in the anthology may be the best path you can take to open up your ears. You can start with the poem I mentioned in class, Randell Jarrell's "A Front" on page 714.

Once you start your poem, use the slant rhyme exercises to find words. Generate a lot of words--by "a lot" I mean: if you need two words, generate 20 or 30.

I also asked you to use some enjambment in your rhymed poems--again, just read, and listen. If you find this very difficult, try one of these ploys:
  • write a rhymed free verse poem
  • combine the first assignment, counterpointed free verse, with slant rhymes

  • <>use or modify step a) in the quantitative syllabics exercise, in which you begin by writing a sentence, rather than by writing lines

Feb 17: I have posted the schedule through the week after Spring Break.  Your first portfolio is due on the Tuesday of that week

Feb 17: Rhyme tables have been sent by e-mail, as has a reminder that two annotated poems are due next week. Note that the schedule used to say three poems were due next week: I have reduced it to two; however, your total number of ten poems by the end of the semester remains unchanged.